Morningstar Advisor Workstation SM Research QuickTips

Transcription

1 Launch Morningstar Advisor Workstation Launch your Internet browser and go to In the MorningstarAdvisor.ca tool bar, click Workstation. The Advisor Workstation launches in a separate browser window. On the left side of the screen, the Workstation Manager appears. Research Navigation Workstation presently provides information on investment funds. The Basics View displays the first 25 items in the universe. Use the Next 25 and Previous 25 options to view additional funds, or use the View menu to toggle between logical groups of data columns. Using the Workstation Manager, click on Research Files. From there you can select the universe of funds to display. As each heading s name suggests, Workstation displays All Funds made up of mutual, seg and hedge funds or just mutual funds, or just seg funds and or just hedge funds. Find a Fund or Index There are two ways to find funds, market indices and other averages in the Research module. Click your cursor in the Find Item(s) beginning with: field. Type in the first few letters of the item you are searching for and click Go. Scroll through the list using the Total Results drop down arrow to toggle between the findings. Please note that only 25 items are shown at a time. To toggle between views of 25, use the Total Results drop down arrow. To find more than one fund, index or average, enter the first few letters of each item separated by commas and click on the Go button. You can also search for funds, market indices and other averages using the Find by Name, Ticker, Fund Code functionality. From the Search menu, select Find by Name/Ticker/Fund Code In the Find by Name/Ticker/Fund Code dialogue box, select either Name, Market Indexes/Other Averages or Fund Code. If you select Name, click Begins with to find a fund by typing in the first few letters of its name, or Contains to find items that contain certain groups of letters, and then type the name of the item you are searching for. Click Find. If you select Market Indexes/Other Averages, click the drop down arrow to select indexes, averages or medians. Click Find. The items that match your query appear in the Total Results box. If over 25 results

2 Page 2 of 6 appear in the Total Results box, click the Total Results arrow to toggle between them. Select the fund or funds to add to your final list, and then click Add. They appear in the Final List box. To remove a fund from the Final List box, select it and then click Remove. Click Ok. Your final list appears in the Research view. Highlighting Funds, Indexes and Other Averages Finding More Details on a Fund View Underlying Holdings of a Fund Click on the fund number to the left of the fund name to highlight the fund. To highlight several funds in succession, highlight the first fund and while holding down the shift key, select the last fund in the list. Current View (Print): To save or print the current view, highlight your fund and click on the Reports menu. Select Current View (Print) and select PDF or CSV to view the current table in PDF format or CSV format. Investment Detail (PDF): To run an Investment Detail report, highlight your fund and click on the Reports menu. Select Investment Detail (PDF) to run the report. Quicktake Report (HTML): To run a Quicktake report in HTML, highlight your fund and from the Reports menu, select Quicktake report (HTML). Highlight the funds you would like to view, then select View, Underlying Holdings. The Underlying Holdings of the selected fund(s) appear in a separate browser window. Click the drop-down menu in the upper left corner to select the next fund in your list. Note: Maximum of 15 funds at a time. Create a Graph Highlight the funds to be graphed & click on Graph. Click on the name of the graph you would like to create. Please note that the start and end dates can be changed in some graphs. Funds can be selected/de-selected from within most graphs. Tip: Rest your cursor on the lines/bars on each graph for special mouse-over features.

3 Page 3 of 6 Printing & Saving Graphs From the Reports menu, click Printable Graph. Adobe Acrobat is launched, and the graph appears. Click the Print button in the Adobe Acrobat toolbar to print the graph. To save the graph to your hard drive, click the Save button, then type a name for the graph and choose a location to save it in. Saving Lists of Mutual Funds Using the Search, Find by Fund Name, Ticker, Fund Code functionality, find the funds to be saved in your list. From the File menu, click Save as List. The Save as List dialog box appears. Type a name for the list and click OK. The new list will appear in Workstation Manager under Research My Lists. Note: A maximum of 100 items can be saved in each list. Opening Lists From the Workstation Manager on the left side of the screen, click Research, and My Lists. A list of your saved lists appears. Click on the list you d like to open. The list appears in Research view. Adding Items to an Existing List Renaming an Existing List Exporting Items to a Spreadsheet In Research view, select the item you want added to an existing list. From the File menu, click on Add to List. The Append to List dialog box appears. Select the list you d like this item added to. Click OK. The selected item is added to your list. To confirm, open the list you just added the item to. From the Workstation Manager on the left side of the screen, click Research and My Lists. A list of your saved lists appears. Click the list you d like to open. The list appears in Research view. From the File menu, click Rename List. The Rename List dialog box appears. Type a new name for the list and click OK. Highlight up to 20 items to export. Click on the View menu to select your view or columns of data to export. Click on Reports and Current View (Print), and then CSV. The data will appear in a simple spreadsheet format, which can be saved.

4 Page 4 of 6 Rank the Data in Any Column Double-click on the column heading and the search results fall in descending order. Double-click again for ascending order. Note: By default, the columns are ranked alphabetically by Name. Working with Views in Research To view additional columns of data points for funds, select View and click on the name of the column group you would like to view. For example, Morningstar Ratings are available by selecting the M*Rating/Risk view. Creating a Custom View From the View menu, click Custom Views. The Custom View dialog box appears. By default, the left side of the screen lists the columns in the Basics view. Click the Select a View arrow to select columns for a different view. The Selected Columns will reflect your selections as you add them. Click New to remove all columns except Name from the Selected Columns list. Select a column from the Available Columns list, and then click Add. Repeat this process for a maximum of 30 data points. Click Save, and then type a name for your view. Click OK. Your custom view appears in Research. Retrieving your Custom View From the View menu, select Custom Views. Select the view using the drop down box in the selected columns area and click OK.

5 Page 5 of 6 Edit or Rename an Existing Custom View From the View menu, click Custom Views. The Custom View dialog box appears. Select the view you want to edit. To re-name the view, simply type the new name for the view. Add or remove the desired columns in Selected Columns list. Click Save. The Save As Custom View dialog box appears. Click OK to confirm the edits. Click OK again in the Custom Views dialog box. Delete a Custom View From the View menu, click Custom Views The Custom View dialog box appears. Click the Delete button. The Delete Custom Views dialog box appears. Select the custom views to delete, and then click OK. Click OK again to exit the Custom Views dialog box. Search by Criteria From the Search menu, click Search by Criteria. The Search by Criteria dialog box appears. As an example, let s find mutual funds in the Canadian Equity CIFSC category that are RRSP eligible. Click in the Field Name column of line 1. A list of possible search criteria appears. Click Fund Type. You ll be taken to the Operator column. Click = Click in the Value column, and scroll down to find Canadian Equity. Your first line of the criteria search is complete. In the Rel(Relation) column, click in line 2, and then click And. Fill in the rest of line 2 with the following: Field Name Operator Value RRSP eligible = Yes In the last column, enter a closing bracket to complete the search. Click OK. Your search results appear in Research view. Notice the number next to Total Results-this is the total number of funds that meet the criteria you selected. Note: The Research view displays the first 200 search results, 25 items at a time. To view the next group of items in the results set, click the menu next to total results and select the next group of 25. By default the results are sorted alphabetically by name.

6 Page 6 of 6 Edit Criteria Results From the Search menu, click Return to Search. The Search Criteria dialog box appears again, with the search criteria you set. Remove the closing bracket from the end of line 2 and enter new criteria on line 3. Once complete, enter a closing bracket at the end of line 3. To execute the updated search, click OK. Save your Search Criteria Retrieve a Saved Search To save your search criteria click the Save button in the Save Search dialog box. Your name can be up to 20 characters long. Saved searches are stored in the Workstation Manager under the heading Saved Searches. Click on the Search menu and select Search by Criteria. From the Search Criteria dialog box, click on the Retrieve button. Set up a Security Alert From the Alerts menu in the Research view, click Set Security Alerts. In the Securities box, select the funds. Click in the Alert column. By default, the available alerts are grouped into four categories: Rating, Style, Performance, and Operations. From the list, click the type of alert you want to set. Click in the Operator column to change the operand. Options differ depending on the type of alert you select. Options include changes, increases, decreases, greater than and less than. If you select greater than or less than in the Operator column, you ll be prompted to enter a number in the Trigger Value column. If the security reaches this trigger value, an alert is triggered. Click in the Frequency column to specify how often the alert is to be run. Daily-We ll check for changes after market close each day. Weekly-We ll run the alert after market close each Friday. Monthly-We ll run the alert at the close of the last business day of each month*. Note: By default, we ll notify you by when an alert is triggered, and we ll provide a link in the our View Triggered Alerts page. From there, you can edit, re-set, or delete them. Click in the Notification box and click No to turn this option off. We ll still update the Triggered Alerts page whenever an alert condition is met; we just won t send an to notify you. Repeat the above steps to add additional alerts. When finished, click Set Alert to set the alerts. You ll be taken back to the Research view. Note: The maximum number of alerts is 100. *All data points except NAVPS change monthly. Security Alerts View The Security Alerts view displays every security alert set, whether triggered or not. From here, you can create, edit, delete, and re-set all of your security alerts. You can also search, graph, view and print reports and view underlying holdings for the securities you ve set alerts on. All of the columns in the Security Alerts view can be ranked. Double- click the column heading to rank it, and double-click again to reverse the ranking order. To view the alerts in the Security Alerts view, click on the Alerts menu and click View All Alerts to verify the alerts you have set. To view triggered alerts, click on the View menu and select Triggered Alerts. Triggered alerts have the! symbol in the Triggered column. The Trigger Date as well as the Beginning and Trigger Values will also be displayed. Resetting Alerts Select a security or group of securities. From the Edit menu, click Reset Alerts. This will remove the triggered alert symbol and reset the alert. Editing Alerts Select a security or group of securities. From the Edit menu, select Edit Alerts. The Edit an Alert dialog box appears. Update or change any of the alert fields and then click Save to save the changes. Deleting Alerts or Groups of Alerts Select a security or group of securities. From the Edit menu, click Delete Alerts. A dialog box appears, asking to confirm the operation. Click Ok. The selected alerts are deleted.